"Yes, your excellency," was the old fellow's reply, in Polish. "Whatever accommodation my poor inn can afford is at your service"—and he at once shouted orders to my driver to bring in my kit, while the women, all of them flat-faced peasants, made room for me at the stove.
From where I stood I could hear the sound of desultory firing across the bridge, and inquired what was in progress.
But there was an ominous silence. They did not reply, for, as I afterwards discovered, they had taken me for a high police official from Petersburg, thus accounting for the innkeeper's courtesy.
"Tell me," I said, addressing the wrinkled-faced old Pole, "what is happening over yonder?"
"The Cossacks," he stammered. "Krasiloff and his Cossacks are upon us. They have just entered the town and are shooting down people everywhere. Hartmann, the great patriot from Germany, has arrived, and the fight for freedom has commenced, excellency. But it is horrible. A poor woman was shot dead before my door half an hour ago, and her body taken away by the soldiers."
Tired as I was, I lost no time. With a glance to see that my own revolver was loaded, I threw aside my overcoat, and, leaving the inn, walked across the bridge into a poor narrow street of wretched-looking houses, many of them built of wood. A man limped slowly past me, wounded in the leg, and leaving blood-spots behind him as he went. An old woman was seated in a doorway, her face buried in her hands, wailing:
Before me I saw a great barricade composed of trees, household furniture, paving-stones, overturned carts, pieces of barbed wire—in fact, everything and anything the populace could seize upon for the construction of hasty defence. Upon the top, silhouetted against the clear frosty sky, was the scarlet flag of the revolution—the Red Rooster was crowing!
Excited men were there, armed with rifles, shouting and giving orders. Then I saw that a small space had been left open against the wall of a house so that persons might pass and repass.
As I approached a wild-haired man shouted to me and beckoned frantically. I grasped his meaning. He wished me to come within. I ran forward, entered the town proper, and a few moments later the opening was closed by a dozen slabs of stone being heaped up into it by as many willing hands.